Anas Ahmad Bani Atta

Type of the article: Research Article

Abstract
Fintech can bridge the financial gap between urban and rural areas. Yet, its impact on rural development in developing nations remains understudied. This paper analyzes the impact of fintech adoption by rural households and small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in Jordan, a developing country. Employing a mixed-methods approach, the study analyzed data from 242 survey participants and conducted interviews with fintech policymakers and service providers. The sample covered rural areas with no banking infrastructure but emerging digital adoption, thus refining the findings to the greater Jordan rural area. The findings indicate that the adoption of fintech markedly improves financial inclusion and rural economic development, especially access to credit, digital payments, and entrepreneurship. The qualitative data provide further insights into barriers to digital economic growth, including inadequate infrastructure, low digital literacy, and a lack of regulatory framework. Overall, the study demonstrates that fintech adoption can significantly transform rural areas of Jordan, provided they have the right institutional and digital infrastructure.

Type of the article: Research Article

Abstract
The global growth of Islamic finance and the recurrence of systemic financial crises have intensified scholarly interest in whether Shariah-compliant investment structures offer measurable performance advantages over conventional counterparts, yet operational efficiency comparisons using non-parametric frontier methods remain scarce. This study aims to evaluate the operational efficiency of Islamic versus conventional mutual funds in Malaysia during the period 2015–2022, with a special focus on efficiency behavior during the COVID-19 crisis (2020–2021), using a two-stage Data Envelopment Analysis framework. A sample of 108 Malaysian mutual funds (52 Islamic and 56 conventional) was analyzed using output-oriented constant-returns-to-scale DEA with annualized return volatility and fund turnover ratio as inputs and the Sharpe ratio as the output, followed by second-stage ordinary least squares regression to identify contextual efficiency determinants. Islamic funds achieved a mean efficiency score of 0.6545 compared to 0.5967 for conventional funds, a statistically significant difference of 5.78 percentage points (t = 2.549, p = 0.012). During the COVID-19 crisis, this gap widened to 14.93 percentage points, with Islamic fund efficiency rising to 0.7281 and conventional fund efficiency declining to 0.5788 (t = 3.519, p = 0.002). Regression analysis confirmed that higher return volatility consistently reduces efficiency (β = −0.043, p < 0.001), while the Islamic×Crisis interaction term indicates a crisis-specific efficiency premium (β = 0.026, p = 0.071). The structural constraints of Islamic finance – prohibiting leverage, speculation, and synthetic instruments – function as resilience mechanisms under macroeconomic pressure, supporting differentiated regulatory consideration for Shariah-compliant funds within dual financial systems.

Acknowledgment
This work was supported by the Deanship of Scientific Research, Vice Presidency for Graduate Studies and Scientific Research, King Faisal University, Saudi Arabia [KFU263216].